The Space Between Us: Conversations about Transforming Conflict

by Betty Pries

Overview

Engage conflict to strengthen connections and build understanding.
 
Conflict is inevitable. But rather than approaching conflicts as threats or problems to be solved, what if we could see our disagreements as opportunities for personal growth? Could our differences push us toward developing healthier relationships and communities? In The Space Between Us, facilitator and mediator Betty Pries gently guides readers toward seeing discord as an opportunity for positive change and a way to build resilience. Rooted in the conviction that conflict can strengthen our relationships and deepen our self-knowledge, Pries offers practical skills for engaging conflict and casts a vision for a more joy-filled future.
 
To get here, Pries plumbs the depth of both conflict theory and contemplative spirituality, proposing a vision for engaging conflict in new and life-giving ways. Rooted in Christian practices of mindfulness, connecting with our most authentic selves, and deep listening to uncover new possibilities, this book offers new ways forward in the face of interpersonal and organizational conflicts.
 
 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781513808703
Publisher:	MennoMedia
Publication date:	08/17/2021
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	216
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Betty Pries is co-founder and CEO of Credence & Co., a consulting agency dedicated to working with organizations and their leaders to help them thrive and flourish. With over 26 years of experience coaching, mediating, training, facilitating, and consulting, Pries is highly regarded as a specialist in conflict, change, and leadership. She brings a unique mix of biblical and theological reflection, spiritual guidance, organizational leadership, and facilitation skills to her work with congregations, faith-based institutions, universities, health care, government agencies, and businesses.
 
Betty Pries is co-founder and CEO of Credence & Co., a consulting agency dedicated to working with organizations and their leaders to help them thrive and flourish. With over 26 years of experience coaching, mediating, training, facilitating, and consulting, Pries is highly regarded as a specialist in conflict, change, and leadership. She brings a unique mix of biblical and theological reflection, spiritual guidance, organizational leadership, and facilitation skills to her work with congregations, faith-based institutions, universities, health care, government agencies, and businesses.
 

Table of Contents

Foreword 11

Introduction 15

1 Disagreements and the Escalation of Conflict 21

2 The Architecture of Selfhood and the Transformation of Conflict 75

3 Reflections on Selfhood 121

4 Conflict Transformation 139

5 Conflict Transformation and the Practice of Spiritual Disciplines 179

Conclusion 217

Acknowledgments 221

Notes 225

The Author 231

Interviews

Waterloo, ON N2L 2W5
 

Editorial Reviews

This book is essential reading for anyone navigating conflict. It is a refreshingly holistic and practical approach to both healing oneself and transforming conflict. With exquisite skill and gentle, storied accompaniment, the author explains what could be highly theoretical and philosophical concepts in a most accessible form. This is a handbook for being human, regardless of your spiritual perspective.

JENNIFER BALL

I read this book in the midst of dealing with a significant conflict in our organization, incorporating Betty Pries’s methods in how I was working at transformation. Never have I come across a book that weaves together the necessity to engage the deepest sense of oneself with conflict transformation strategy . . . and this book does it through a narrative paradigm. Absolutely brilliant!

DOUG KLASSEN

The Space Between Us is an invaluable book. Betty Pries uses her keen intellect, contemplative heart, and years of mediating personal and organizational conflict to guide us into the knowledge and practices that can lead us to peace with ourselves and with the people whose lives intersect our own. She invites us onto a challenging path, which holds the risk of our becoming humbler, wiser, more generous, and more gracious.

REBECCA SLOUGH

In The Space Between Us, Betty Pries offers sound conflict management principles and takes the reader much deeper. We are guided toward wisdom so needed in our world today—the ability to manage our defenses and differences in order to see and embrace the common humanity of our belovedness. Her work provides a path to greater hope for healing the self and to greater joy for a human community seeking reconciliation.

DAVID BOSHART

The Space Between Us offers readers a rich well of practical wisdom about what it means to be human and how to flourish in a world full of pain and conflict. Betty Pries shows us how conflict can be an opportunity for the growth of both individuals and communities. This book is especially important for churches, as it invites us to live more fully into the vibrant, relational life of the Trinity, for which we were created.

C. CHRISTOPHER SMITH